They sell addictive unhealthy food and lure our children in with bright colors and toys but this time Mc Donald’s has gone too far. I was dumbfounded and disgusted to hear that recently McDonalds released a radio commercial saying that eating Chicken McNuggets is safer than petting a pitbull. This is not only untrue but an insult to every responsible pitbull owner on the planet. This unnecessary jab aimed at what was once America’s number one family dog is uncalled for. Insinuating that a dog is unsafe just because it is a pitbull is slander.
Recently a 17 year old girl from the UK was hospitalized after eating a diet of mainly Chicken McNuggets for the past 15 years of her life. Did this event prompt McDonalds to attempt to prove the safety of their iconic chicken bites? This is a link to an article about her: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2092071/Stacey-Irvine-17-collapses-eating-McDonalds-chicken-nuggets-age-2.html
The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan is a great book that goes into detail about how the eating habits of Americans have changed over the past 30 years. He touches on the subject of Chicken McNuggets and describes the ingredients used. The following paragraphs are taken directly from The Omnivore’s Dilemma:
"The ingredients listed in the flyer suggest a lot of thought goes into a nugget, that and a lot of corn. Of the thirty-eight ingredients it takes to make a McNugget, I counted thirteen that can be derived from corn: the corn-fed chicken itself; modified cornstarch (to bind the pulverized chicken meat); mono-, tri-, and diglycerides (emulsifiers, which keep the fats and water from separating); dextrose; lecithin (another emulsifier); chicken broth (to restore some of the flavor that processing leeches out); yellow corn flour and more modified cornstarch (for the batter); cornstarch (a filler); vegetable shortening; partially hydrogenated corn oil; and citric acid as a preservative. A couple of other plants take part in the nugget: There's some wheat in the batter, and on any given day the hydrogenated oil could come from soybeans, canola, or cotton rather than corn, depending on the market price and availability.
According to the handout, McNuggets also contain several completely synthetic ingredients, quasiedible substances that ultimately come not from a corn or soybean field but form a petroleum refinery or chemical plant. These chemicals are what make modern processed food possible, by keeping the organic materials in them from going bad or looking strange after months in the freezer or on the road. Listed first are the "leavening agents": sodium aluminum phosphate, mono-calcium phosphate, sodium acid pyrophosphate, and calcium lactate. These are antioxidants added to keep the various animal and vegetable fats involved in a nugget from turning rancid. Then there are "anti-foaming agents" like dimethylpolysiloxene, added to the cooking oil to keep the starches from binding to air molecules, so as to produce foam during the fry. The problem is evidently grave enough to warrant adding a toxic chemical to the food: According to the Handbook of Food Additives, dimethylpolysiloxene is a suspected carcinogen and an established mutagen, tumorigen, and reproductive effector; it's also flammable.
But perhaps the most alarming ingredient in a Chicken McNugget is tertiary butylhydroquinone, or TBHQ, an antioxidant derived from petroleum that is either sprayed directly on the nugget or the inside of the box it comes in to "help preserve freshness." According to A Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives, TBHQ is a form of butane (i.e. lighter fluid) the FDA allows processors to use sparingly in our food: It can comprise no more than 0.02 percent of the oil in a nugget. Which is probably just as well, considering that ingesting a single gram of TBHQ can cause "nausea, vomiting, ringing in the ears, delirium, a sense of suffocation, and collapse." Ingesting five grams of TBHQ can kill."
Sounds like McDonalds might want to take a look at what they are promoting here. An unknown author referred to the chicken bites as Chicken McPoison which seems to be a fitting name. If you are going to compare Chicken McNuggets to something and try to make safety claims maybe the comparison should be more accurate. Chicken McNuggets are safer to eat than raw sewage perhaps.
Please call McDonalds at 1-800-244-6227 and tell them that this ad should be pulled as it is untrue, false advertising and defamation of an entire breed of dog.
UPDATE: To see an article about Mcdonald's response please visit http://www.examiner.com/dogs-in-phoenix/mcdonalds-issues-appology-to-pitbull-advocates-by-posting-comment-on-facebook
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